Thank
you. On behalf of the Obama
administration, it is my privilege to welcome you this morning.

APEC
is the preeminent forum for advancing commerce in the Asia Pacific region, and
the United States is honored to be hosting it this year.

And
I want to recognize Japan for hosting the very successful and productive APEC
meetings in 2010.

As
APEC host for 2011, the United States has identified promoting green growth as
one of our top priorities for the coming year.

Why? Because energy may be the defining challenge
of our time. . .

. . . the
one issue, more than any other, that will shape the fate of our planet, our
economies, and our nations.

It
also may well be one of the greatest economic opportunities of the 21st century. . .

. . . an
opportunity that could help put millions of people to work in high-skill,
high-wage jobs.

And
one of the most promising areas, especially in the near term, is energy
efficiency.

Efficiency is the “low hanging fruit” of the
world’s energy challenge.

The UN Foundation recently said that “governments
should exploit energy efficiency as their energy resource of first choice
because it is the least expensive and most readily scalable energy option.”

With efficiency, we don't have to depend on
scientific breakthroughs or engineering miracles. We're not waiting for economies of scale to
get big enough so efficiency can compete with other energy alternatives.

It’s merely a way of maximizing the amount of energy you
get from existing sources.

An upfront investment in efficiency is on average five times
cheaper than investments in new supply.
And it is insulated from many of the troubling vagaries of the energy
market.

Many efficiency measures can be cost effective when oil is at
$20 a barrel and a great number pay off quickly at today’s price over $100 a
barrel.

Efficiency investments are a boon for consumers as
well. If we can meet rising energy
demand with increased efficiency instead of building new power plants, it will
cost electric ratepayers less money.

According to the McKinsey Global Institute, the growth rate
of worldwide energy consumption could be cut by more than half over the next
few decades through more energy-efficiency efforts, and it could be achieved
with current technology.

And the biggest source of untapped efficiency in the United
States and around the world are our buildings.

In
the U.S., buildings consume 40 percent of energy and 73 percent of
electricity. They are responsible for
about 39 percent of carbon emissions – more than the transportation or industrial
sectors.

It's
no surprise then that greening these buildings can create immense economic
opportunity, with the overall green building market projected to reach as much
as $140 billion by 2013.

We
have made great progress improving building efficiency in the United
States. In fact, U.S. organizations certify
more than one million square feet of green buildings every day.

But in President Obama’s administration leadership on energy
efficiency begins at the very top.

For example, the president has
signed an executive order mandating that the 500,000 U.S. government buildings
across America significantly reduce carbon emissions by 2020.

Efficiency is one of the
quickest and cheapest near-term solutions to reduce those emissions.

As part of the president's directive, the Commerce
Department is also working with the State Department to “green” U.S. embassy
buildings around the world.

And some of you may have seen the Washington Post story the
other day about the “net zero” test house – which can produce as much energy
each year as it uses – that we are building on the grounds of our National
Institute of Standards and Technology or NIST.

And President Obama has set a goal of all new U.S.
government built after 2020 to have net zero energy use by 2030.

But
as important as it is for governments to make their own buildings more
efficient, the biggest impact we can have is in creating standards and
incentives for state and local governments, homeowners, business owners and
schools to do the same thing.

That’s why NIST is also playing a leading role in supporting
the development of a national smart electric grid, an Obama administration
priority.

Among the most important benefits of the smart grid is the
added control it gives utilities and their customers to monitor and reduce the
energy used in heating, cooling and lighting systems.

To ensure that emerging hardware and software for the smart
grid is compatible, NIST has launched the Smart Grid Interoperability
Panel.

NIST has already collected input from 600
organizations and 1,600 individual members, and rolled out Version 1.0 of an
Interoperability Framework that identifies, prioritizes and addresses new
requirements for Smart Grid interoperability and security.

And it's absolutely critical for NIST and its APEC
counterparts to collaborate on these standards.

If
smart grid standards develop in a piecemeal manner, countries may not easily
benefit from the innovations developed in another. . .

. . . or
technologies developed today may be rendered obsolete as countries with large
market potential later decide on their standards.

Standards aren’t just important for the smart grid, they are
also critical for an array of technologies and materials that impact building
efficiency.

And at Commerce, we are working closely with the U.S. Trade
Representative and our counterparts in Asia to ensure the Trans-Pacific
Partnership makes important headway in standards development.

As
always, APEC will be central to this effort, and I want to thank the several
APEC economies and private sector organizations that are co-sponsoring this
green growth conference.

The United States has an exciting APEC work program
scheduled throughout the year, and I look forward to ambitious and concrete
outcomes on this and other critical issues when APEC Leaders meet in Honolulu
this November.